Grown-ish: Late Registration

January 6, 2018 8:10 AM - Season 1, Episode 1

Zoey Johnson is going to college! Can she and her new friends navigate family expectations, drunken parties, the lure of Adderall addiction, and, for some inexplicable reason, midnight classes as they make the transition to adulthood? Can series creator Kenya Barris pull off a spinoff of his hit series black-ish? Can this show appeal to actual young people, as opposed to middle-aged losers (ie me) who are nostalgic for A Different World and Undeclared? With this episode, we start to find out.

Vanity Fair: How Grown-ish captures the angst of college kids in Trump's America

The Root: Grown-ish isn't A Different World- and I'm cool with that

Inside Higher Ed weighs in.

posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious (5 comments total)

I'm not sold on this so far. It's not bad, but it's not particularly compelling. I think they set up some stuff that could be really interesting, but I'm not actually emotionally invested in any of the characters yet. And I wish Vivek weren't so much of a stereotype.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:57 AM on January 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Grown-ish isn't A Different World- and I'm cool with that

It's not but the first episode left me feeling like the producers/writers were trying extra hard head off those likely comparisons.

I'm far from the target demographic for this show but I'll probably keep watching just for Professor Charlie. He continues to be as hilariously out there in the college environment as he is in the corporate one.
posted by fuse theorem at 1:33 PM on January 6, 2018

It was okay but not great.
posted by k8t at 9:35 PM on January 6, 2018

It also bothers me that Halle and Chloe are playing twins when they are 2 year apart. They also aren't the best actors.
posted by k8t at 9:38 PM on January 6, 2018

Same as most here, it was fine, but not great. Charlie, one of the sublime great characters from Black-ish, is still a treat. They went hard in trying to establish emotional reasons as to why we should care about our new 'Breakfast Club,' and it was so so successful. They could have just as well dropped these nuggets throughout the first few episodes, rather than cram it all in at once.
posted by Atreides at 1:21 PM on January 8, 2018